Chapter 067 – Bronze Mechanical Ostrich
Translated by: Ting
Edited by: Robin, Leo and De Andre
“Junk?” Yu Bao’s expression turned stoic, but soon began to laugh out loud in exaggeration, “Sir, you really know how to joke! Why would there be junk in my shop? These items, they are freshly excavated from the ruins of the ancient Roman Dynasty… …”
Bing interrupted coldly, “Old Cao is so foolish, to have sold these ancient Roman antiques as junk to you.”
Yu Bao stared dumbfoundedly at Bing. This fellow, wasn’t he a spirit? Yu Bao was certain that he had never seen this young master, nor his two spirits before.
Could it be that it knows mind reading?
No matter which angle one looks at Bing, he was definitely a spirit, but how high was his ranking, for a spirit with such high intelligence? Yu Bao has often heard that these spirits have some weird abilities, especially those high level spirits. They were intimidating, as their powerful, yet mysterious abilities enable them to toy with humans and make their lives a living h.e.l.l.
Bing’s blank face appeared even more sinister and dangerous in Yu Bao’s eyes.
He forced a smile, “Ah, you must be an acquaintance! Since you are a friend of Old Cao, we are family then. I got these items from Old Cao for five pieces of fourth level Spirit Nuclei. Young Master, on account of my hard work, please reward me.”
Bing asked for ten Spirit Nuclei from Tang Tian, thrusted them to Yu Bao and turned towards the pile of junk. When Bing entered the shop, he had clearly overheard the conversation of the two shopkeepers on the other side.
Yu Bao eyes lit up, with a swoop of both hands, he executed the ‘Swallow Three-Swoops’ and cleanly swooped up all the Spirit Nuclei.
“Wow, not bad!” Tang Tian had a face of approval, acknowledging that Yu Bao’s Concealed Weapons Technique was outstanding.
Yu Bao respectfully replied, “Thanks for the acknowledgement!” He was secretly gloating, as he pulled off a petty trick. That pile of junk that he got from Old Cao was actually worth just one Spirit Nucleus, but he has ten of them now, which meant ten times the profit, and he was quite content. Besides, the moment the Spirit Nuclei were in his hands, he could tell that the wood element Spirit Nucleus belonged to the Green Sandalwood Ape, which was a rare item.
Other than its Spirit Nucleus, the ape had no other valuable parts, and such star spirit beasts had relatively thick muscles with mighty strength, and were difficult to handle. The weak had no chance of defeating them, while the strong would have gone to prey on fifth level Spirit Nuclei, as no one was willing to do such a thankless job.
The Green Sandalwood Ape’s Spirit Nucleus was a high-quality raw material used to produce rank four fist arts spirit cards, which fetch a much higher price than normal fourth level Spirit Nucleus.
Great deal!
Tang Tian’s attention turned to Bing who was tossing in the pile of junk. Tang Tian huddled over and got a better look at the pile of junk, which turned out to be a pile of sc.r.a.p metal of various odd shapes and sizes, and appeared to be parts of some machinery. From the colour, it was bronze. No wonder Yu Bao could not even convince himself that those were antiques, as those bronze items were not even rusty despite it being ancient items, and appeared to be not more than twenty years old.
“Uncle Bing, what good stuff do you have in here?” Tang Tian could not help asking.
“You will know soon.” Bing did not even raise his head, and Tang Tian could tell that he seemed to be piecing something with his fast, nimble hands.
It seemed as though Bing would take a long time, and Tang Tian could not make any sense of it, so he started to browse the shop casually. Yu Bao knew that the young master before him was difficult to fool, so he decided to behave and began to describe the origins honestly.
Suddenly, the Crane Body in Tang Tian’s body moved, from the shelf on the opposite side of the shop, there was a weak energy wave felt.
Tang Tian was surprised. He walked towards the shelf, and located the source of the energy wave.
A bronze crane, the size of an infant’s palm, was standing quietly on the shelf. Tang Tian picked up the bronze crane, and blew away the dust coated on its surface. The tiny bronze crane looked clean and new, seemingly made from numerous fine sticks of delicate bronze feathers, and was extremely intricate. The tiny crane had a small hole on the top of its head, presumably used to string it up as an ornament of a sort, Tang Tian reckoned.
“This tiny bronze crane was bought a few years back, it isn’t worth much. I have no idea which craftsman made it, it looks pretty nice. If young master likes it, I will give it to you for free!” Yu Bao generously offered. In truth, he did not even pay a cent for it, and he knew that though the other party was not easily fooled, he was generous, and would not mind a few petty cents. Since this tiny bronze crane looks new, it must be a recent creation and not worth much, thus it can only be used as a decoration.
As expected, Tang Tian took out ten Spirit Nuclei and threw them to Yu Bao, “I want this.”
Yu Bao was grinning from ear to ear, as such generous spenders revitalised him, “Thanks Master for the tip!”
Tang Tian fiddled with the tiny bronze crane, with a gut feeling that the crane may be affiliated with the Crane Sect, else he would not have been able to sense the Crane Body. Once the crane was in his hands, there was no other reactions except for increased wave motions. Tang Tian put it into his Aquarius Martial Cabinet offhandedly.
“Is there any place that sells spirit cards?” Tang Tian asked casually.
Yu Bao immediately asked, “Which rank and grade do you want? If you want a good deal, Lin Ji Card Shop is not bad, it had a wide variety with cheap deals. However, his shop only has mostly silver grade cards, if young master would like to get the high rank gold grade cards, it would be better to go to Treasure Card Abode, which specialises in selling rare spirit cards, but the price would be a huge burden on a normal citizen like me. Of course, to a young master like you, it is definitely not an issue.”
“Which place sells rank four mental cultivation spirit cards?” Tang Tian inquired.
“Rank four… …” Yu Bao was stumped. To be able to enter Three-Spirits City, one must be at least at the fourth level of True Power, who would want to purchase a rank four card? Besides, in his opinion, how could such rich people lack spirit cards? However, thinking back on all the peculiar hobbies the previous young masters have had, Yu Bao thought that this could be quite a normal hobby as well.
“Young master wants to purchase rank four spirit cards, eh!” Yu Bao pretended to be pondering hard for Tang Tian, “I recall that there’s a shop in the east part of the city called Salleh Card Store, his store specialises in collecting all kinds of peculiar cards, even gold grade cards for fundamental martial techniques.”
“Gold grade cards for fundamental martial techniques!” Tang Tian was dazed. It was the first time that he heard of gold grade cards for fundamental martial techniques.
Yu Bao appeared empathetic, “There’s always bound to be people who have contrasting tastes in this world.”
He bootlicked Tang Tian without batting an eyelid, as in his eyes, this young master probably had similar hobbies. If not, why would he buy a rank four spirit card? And he even came to Three-Spirits City to buy a rank four spirit card, if it were someone else, Yu Bao would have probably given a good tongue-lashing for being crazy.
“Done.” Bing suddenly piped up from behind.
Tang Tian and Yu Bao spun around on hearing Bing, and while Yu Bao stared dumbfoundedly at the bronze ostrich before Bing, Tang Tian was excitedly screaming and running over, “Uncle Bing, what is this?”
The bronze ostrich was slightly taller than Tang Tian and closely resembled an ostrich, except that it was built from bronze spare parts, with two very st.u.r.dy legs which gave off an extremely heavy feeling. There was a saddle-like area for mounting, on the ostrich’s back.
“The bronze mechanical ostrich, a typical land mount for the Southern Cross Army’s recruit camp.” Bing airily replied.
Without hesitation, Tang Tian flipped himself over and mounted it.
“Stuff a star rock here.” Bing revealed the back of the ostrich’s neck to show a notch, which could fit a star rock perfectly. Tang Tian did not hesitate to stuff one in.
Voila.
The bronze mechanical ostrich opened its droopy eyelids and its bronze eyeb.a.l.l.s inside started to move slowly.
“Leave your Martial Spirit imprint here.” Bing pointed to the back of the ostrich’s head.
Tang Tian quickly followed his instructions and as expected, a weak connection formed between him and the ostrich, and Tang Tian was moved.
Clunk clunk!
The bronze mechanical ostrich started walking and running about in the yard. Although it looked extremely clumsy, when it sprinted, it was speedy. Initially, it failed to grasp its balance properly, thus when it ran around it was extremely unstable. Soon after Tang Tian found the trick to it, the ostrich began to walk more gracefully.
“The speed of the ostrich is not considered fast, almost similar to the average speed of a fifth level martial artist’s light body technique. However, the advantage is that it does not deplete the True Power nor energy of its rider, making it suitable for long distance travelling. That is why the recruit camp of the Southern Cross Army was also known as the Ostrich Camp.”
Bing’s familiarity with the historical events made Yu Bao concede defeat in admiration.
Yu Bao’s shop has been around for some years, thus he had seen all kinds of people and events. Although there had been many formidable figures, no one had been able to build a complete mechanical ostrich from sc.r.a.p. Naturally, Yu Bao would have heard of the bronze mechanical ostrich of the Southern Cross Army, but never in his wildest dreams did he think that there would be someone alive who could fully restore this legendary ostrich.
He was even more convinced that Tang Tian had a formidable background.
Spirits with such profound knowledge could only appear in clans with a long history. And Southern Cross Army was previously one of the three big armies of the Scorpio Dynasty! The history goes a long way back, and few youngsters know about them nowadays.
Yu Bao could almost picture the furore of the Three-Spirits City when the bronze mechanical ostrich appears in the streets.
Being quick-witted, Yu Bao immediately thought of a perfect selling point together with the advertising slogan in mind.
“The bronze mechanical ostrich that resurrected from the junk, the masterpiece of the three big armies era!”
“As long as you have a discerning eye, you can obtain real gold from gravel!”
“Come try your luck, Yu Ji Unappraised Specialties Store, for the lucky and discerning!”
Yu Ji Unappraised Specialties Store, haha, this shop name is fabulous!
With the ostrich for publicity, he can now specialise in selling junk. As long as prices are kept low, there’s bound to be people who want to try their luck. Now, he could openly dabble in junk business! Hehe, what a brilliant idea he had!
It was as if Yu Bao saw a golden pathway.
Tang Tian sprinted fast, while easily controlling the ostrich with the Martial Spirit imprint, enabling it to run like the wind.
A group of people pa.s.sed by the shop, and from the corner of her eye, one lady happened to glance at the interior of the shop and stopped abruptly in her tracks. Moments later, she snapped out of her daze and exclaimed, “The bronze mechanical ostrich!”
The others were stopped by her loud exclamation and everyone peered into the shop’s interior.
“It’s really the bronze mechanical ostrich!”
“Wow! The ancient mount of the Southern Cross Army!”
“So cool!”
The few youngsters were all excited and their eyes shone. In the blink of an eye, they all rushed into the shop.
Yu Bao’s expression changed slightly upon seeing the sight.
d.a.m.n, why are they here?